Ehon noyamagusa

5 volumes of flower drawings from the Japanese Illustrated Books from the Edo and Meiji Periods collection made available by Smithsonian Libraries: Ehon Noyamagusa by Tachibana Yazukuni. The books were originally published in the mid-1700s. They are woodblock prints…ink on paper.

The 1700s were a time of exploration around the world and plants were part of the discoveries being made. Many of the plants depicted in these books are in gardens around the world now but would have been new and wonderous in Europe at the time these books were produced.

I picked an image from each of the 5 volumes. My favorite is the last one: lotuses.

Smithsonian Libraries eBooks

Smithsonian Libraries include many digitized books that are freely available. I’ve particularly enjoyed the Japanese Illustrated Books from the Edo and Meiji Periods. The links to eBooks in this collection will bring a page with the cover of the book and a link to ‘read in full screen’

Which will expand the image into the full screen of your browser window. To start reading, click on the arrow buttons button on the screen or the arrows on your keyboard to turn the page. Note: the Japanese books are read back to front so the ‘<’ arrow moves through the book.

Many of the books will be ‘too big’ to view in the window so use the ‘-‘ to make the pages small enough to fit. 

2017 Slideshow

I've concatenated the 2017 sample images into one big show....enjoy!